The Fine Art of Freefall
by Donelle
Summary: In freefall after the season one finale, John Sheppard struggles to find his way.
1. Chapter 1

_**Important Note:** An earlier version of this story was posted under a different username, with the title "Aftermath". During my extended fan fiction hiatus I choose to change both my username and the name of this story. Furthermore, due to all the revision and expansion the story has undergone, I choose to post it as an entirely new story (rather than edit the chapters of the first story with the changes). If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a message. _

**Title:** The Fine Art of Freefall

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** In freefall after the season one finale, John Sheppard struggles to find his way.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the recognizable/original characters, places or things. I made no profit off of this story. I do own this plot and any new characters/places/things.

* * *

The puddle jumper is falling. Quickly, heeding the law of gravity. John Sheppard's fingers dance across the controls of the little ship, its genetic interface too badly damaged to function. He flies on instinct and skill alone, leveling the fall into a slow glide. He can not allow himself to loose focus. He has to keep flying, has to make it home.

Home, a smudge of blue and green and silver on the horizon. He keeps his eyes on it as much as he can, flicking between the controls and the floating city that grows ever larger. The outer bay doors are already open. Like they were waiting for him, waiting despite all the evidence that must say he would not, could not, return. John has lived and nearly died by the mantra of leave no man behind, but that is duty and honor and commitment and this – the blind faith that he will return – he thinks might be friendship.

The people within Atlantis may hope he will return, but for now they are oblivious to how very close he is. The city however is not so blind, and he suddenly feels her auto landing take over control of the jumper, his own bio stats flashing through his mind, tinged with worry. It is just as well the city has control of the ship now – his hands are shaking badly, fresh blood staining them crimson, and he is very nearly out of strength. His vision dims and he slumps against the controls, the hum of Atlantis against his mind comforting him.

He smiles, the dried blood on his face cracking, and then there is nothing.

* * *

"John!"

A name. His name? He is not quite sure. He is tired, very tired, and can not seem to think.

"John, stay with me, stay with me!"

"Damn…"

Hands are on his body, touching everything, everywhere. It doesn't hurt, although he has the feeling it should.

"…weak and thready."

"No time -"

"-loosing him!"

He clings for another second, savoring the moment of awareness, the care he feels radiating from those around them, and then he surrenders to the pull of the dark.

* * *

He stays unaware and uncaring of the passage of time until slowly, ever so slowly, his fingers and toes start to tingle and his mind begins to work, if brokenly.

He knows who he is, although he can not say why he is so certain as he can not bring a name or even a life to mind.

He remembers flight, and fire and darkness. He thinks there is more, but he can't recall.

He drifts for a time and there are voices around him that he does not have the energy to focus on. He lets the sounds, the rise and fall of tones, wash over him.

He doesn't know when he went back to the blackness, but he must have because he comes to awareness with a start, instantly overwhelmed by pain. He hurts. Everywhere.

Morphine. The word comes to him in a flash, and although he has no idea what it means he murmurs it. He forces the raspy syllables through wooden lips and a dry mouth. Although the word is pitifully soft and weak to his own ears he repeats it, certain that it will bring relief from the pain.

He hears voices again and then there is a slight tingling in his veins. He has no context for the feeling, no memory of what it means, but a moment later he realizes the pain is less. He smiles.

* * *

When he next surfaces in the conscious world his mind is clearer, if only a little. He remembers. Bits and pieces, but more than the vast nothingness of before.

He is John Sheppard, a Major in the US Air Force. But he is not in the United States; he is not even on earth. He remembers Atlantis, recognizes the city's gentle presence within his mind, and he remembers the cold, deadly Wraith.

He opens his eyes, if only to banish the image of the Wraith. He can manage no more than the slow raising of heavy lids, but it is more than he had been able to do before. He blinks a few times, with agonizing slowness, and blurred colors resolve themselves into a ceiling and, in the corner of his eyes, a wall.

John tries to move, but cannot, and he calls for someone to let him up. Or at least, he tries to. Instead of words his mouth produces a weak croak which, although not very articulate, has the desired effect. Faces, faintly familiar, appear over him, a warm hand settles on his shoulder, and then there is a thin straw in his mouth.

He sucks at it, dismayed with both the effort it takes and the minute amount of liquid his efforts produce. It is enough to coat his mouth and throat, and so it will have to do. He swallows, and tries to talk. The first time it does not work, but he tries again.

"B…Beck?" He whispers, not being able to recall or articulate the last part of the name.

"Aye, son." An accented voice says, the hand on his shoulder tightening ever so slightly. "How are you feeling?"

John swallows again and blinks, slowly. He is not sure how he feels. The pain is not so bad, but his body feels heavy and sore. "'nt move." He says finally.

"You're in restraints." Beckett says. From anyone else those words might be frightening, but as John's memory begins to trickle back he feels no fear.

"Why?" He asks, the words coming easier now.

"Do you know where you are?" The doctor asks, not answering. He reaches for an object out of the major's line of sight, and then something cool and slightly damp is sliding over his sweaty forehead.

"N't answer." John slurs petulantly, and then "A'lan'is."

"Yes." Beckett agrees. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Flying." John says, simply.

"Anything else?" The question is layered with meaning that John can not grasp.

"Hive ships." He shivers a bit. "Coming for Atlantis. Had to stop them." He pauses again, thinking. "Gate." No, that isn't quite right. "Star…stargate. Earth. Everett?" The last is a question. He recalls the name, but not its importance.

"Yes, Everett came through the stargate, with reinforcements from Earth."

"They help?"

"Supposedly." The word is muffled, as heard from underwater; he is fading now, his energy ebbing away like an ocean tide.

"Sleep." The doctor says. "The rest will wait."

He wants to ask what happened, because he can't remember the end, but the world is dissolving into darkness and he can not stop it.

* * *

He drifts in and out of awareness, surfacing for long enough to blink at the ceiling or swallow some water. Beckett and nameless other hover over him and he lets their probing fingers touch his hot skin, loose limbed and compliant despite the pain.

As the first rays of bright dawn sun filter through the stained glass windows by his bed, he awakens enough to speak again.

"What time is it?" He asks the room at large.

"About eight." Beckett says from a nearby chair, the response automatic. The doctor's blood shot eyes do not waver from the papers he is flicking through.

A moment of silence.

"Oh!" The papers fall, fluttering to the ground as the doctor stands. "You're awake!"

"Yeah." John feels that Beckett's comment requires more of a response, but he can't summon the energy to say more. The doctor does not seem to mind however and begins to methodically check the hectic mess of wires and tubes that lead to and from his body. This task keeps him occupied for some moments and John watches with weary interest.

"How long?" he asks finally, as Becket is poking a digital thermometer into one of John's ears.

"Since the whole bloody mess started?" Beckett asks.

John can't quite recall what 'the whole bloody mess' is, but he nods anyways.

"About ten hours, give or take."

John winces, mourning time lost, and asks "The city…how bad?"

"Bad enough." Beckett says, and there is a slight burning in his veins, a now familiar feeling. "I gave you something for the pain. Just relax."

He can do nothing but.

* * *

"You are the most monumentally idiotic person I have ever had the grave misfortune to meet!" A sharp voice says, waking John. He pries his eyes open and stares drowsily at the blue and tan blob off to one side.

"McKay?" He asks, not entirely sure.

"Of course." The scientist says, pacing with pent up energy. "What the hell were you thinking?!" Rodney asks, angrily. John's memory is still fragmented, but he has enough to know what McKay is talking about.

He can't shrug, but he says "I did what had to be done."

"You flew a jumper into a hive ship!"

"Into the dart bay." John corrected. The argument was draining his strength, and he struggled not to let it show.

"Semantics!"

John is quiet for a moment, trying to fill in the holes. He remembers flying, remembers landing and remembers hiding the nuke within the landing bay and arming it and then….nothing.

"Did the nuke go off?" He asks finally.

"The remote detonator failed."

"So…it didn't go off?" John isn't sure.

"Oh, no, it went off beautifully, WITH YOU INSIDE THE BLAST RADIUS!" The second half is shouted.

"Rodney!" Beckett hisses, shouldering his way between the scientist and John's bed.

"I survived a nuclear blast?" John asks, doubtfully, as Beckett makes shushing motions at Rodney. He is pretty sure he see's a pantomimed beheading in the doctors movements, but Rodney doesn't seem worried.

"I built a delay into the manual detonation. Enough time for you to clear the ship and get to a safe distance. You would have made it, but you got side tracked."

"Side tracked?" An ominous pair of words, coming from Rodney.

"You decided to go a few rounds with some Wraith. By the time you got back to the jumper you barely had enough time to get out of the ship. The jumper took heavy damage, and the internal dampeners were one of the first things to go. You're…" Rodney's voice cuts off abruptly.

"That's quite enough." Beckett says. "John, I'm giving you another dose of morphine. You need to rest." The doctor doesn't wait for John's faint nod of consent before injecting the drugs.

* * *

He drifts for awhile, his only measure of time the too fast beeping of a heart monitor and the frequent inflation of a blood pressure cuff around one painful arm.

"How is he?" A hushed female voice asks.

"Bad." Beckett says, and John realizes the question was not meant for him to answer, nor for him to overhear.

"How did the surgery go?"

A heavy sigh. "We had to remove the spleen and I doubt his liver is going to last the night."

"The legs?" the woman talking to Beckett asks.

"We did what we could, given how weak he is. Reduced the worst of the fractures, splinted everything. The nerve damaged to the left leg is pretty severe."

"What else?"

"Nothing you don't already know. Fractures in his arms, ribs, skull. Assorted internal injuries. We're trying to keep the swelling in his brain down, but damage has already been done. He may have long term problems with his vision and fine motor control."

"Is there any good news?" The female voice – Elizabeth, John suddenly remembers – asks.

"Not much." Beckett says, bluntly. "He's extubated and breathing on his own, but I don't think that'll last. His lungs took a beating. He's talking with reasonable coherency, seems to remember who he is and a little of what happened. But Elizabeth…" The doctor's voice is shaking, with stress or exhaustion or some combination of the two. "Elizabeth, I don't think he'll make it if he stays here. We don't have the facilities or the supplies. He'll probably need a new liver within a few days. If he makes it past that – and I must stress the uncertainty there – he still has to overcome the damage to his lungs and brain and will need extensive orthopedic surgery if he wants to walk again. That's not even mentioning the rehabilitation that will be required."

"He won't want to go." Elizabeth says, but John can already hear the acceptance in her voice.

"I'm afraid this has long passed the point of what the major does or does not want. Earth offers no guarantees, but it does provide stronger odds."

There is a long, long silence, the sort that occurs when one makes a decision they know is right but can not bring themselves to enjoy.

Elizabeth sighs, and says "The gate opens in an hour. Make sure he's ready."

That was it. His fate decided in the space of a few minutes. He vaguely wonders at where they got the energy to open the gate up, but that question is buried beneath growing layers of exhaustion.

Atlantis flutters against his mind, unhappy to see him go. He knows she will not lock the gate down though, knows that she would drain herself dry if it ensured he got safety through to Earth. For just as the doctor feared for John's life on Atlantis, so did the city herself. She would keep him alive, even if that meant sending him away.

John drifts to sleep with images of ZPM's and hive ships flashing against his eyelids. When he next wakes, he is in the gate room, bathed in the blue of an open wormhole, and Rodney and Elizabeth and Beckett are saying goodbye to him.

TBC (?)

* * *

A/N: I am coming off a long hiatus and feedback would be great!

In case anyone was wondering about the restraints - It's not uncommon for seriously injured patients to be placed in soft restraints. Unconscious and semi-conscious patients are prone to moving, which can cause further injuries as well as disconnect important tubes and monitors.

About John's poor, lost spleen - because the spleen is an extremely vascular organ, injury to it can result in a great deal of blood lost. Sometimes removing it is the only way to control the bleeding. While this may save the persons life, it is not without complications. Because the spleen plays a part in a person's immune system, loosing it can leave a person more vulnerable to certain types of bacteria.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Important Note:** An earlier version of this story was posted under a different username, with the title "Aftermath". During my extended fan fiction hiatus I choose to change both my username and the name of this story. Furthermore, due to all the revision and expansion the story has undergone, I choose to post it as an entirely new story (rather than edit the chapters of the first story with the changes). If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a message. _

**Title:** The Fine Art of Freefall

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** In freefall after the season one finale, John Sheppard struggles to find his way.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the recognizable/original characters, places or things. I made no profit off of this story. I do own this plot and any new characters/places/things.

* * *

On Earth, O'Neill and a barrage of medical personal greet him. He can't work up the energy to speak, stomach still rolling from the trip through the gate, but he manages to wave a few fingers at the General. The man is crazy, but decent. He gave John a chance in Antarctica and let him go to Atlantis, black mark be damned.

* * *

John drifts for a while, lulled by rolling movement under him and a cacophony of voices. When he next blinks to full awareness there is fresh air blowing across his face and the roar of helicopter rotors. A hand on his shoulder, a voice in his ear, and they tell him that he'll be okay. He appreciates the sentiment, but doesn't believe it.

* * *

His arrival at the hospital, military from the look of the uniforms, is marked by the bloody hue of a red dawn and too many people to count. They surge around him with a hypnotizing effect and he surrenders to their pull.

* * *

They put a tube in his skull and tell him they have to monitor the pressure. He spends the rest of the day imagining his skull exploding like a soda can in the freezer. He goes so far as to wonder who would have to clean the bits of his brain off the wall. When he asks a doctor, they just lower his morphine.

* * *

Four days after John's return to Earth, a twenty two year old man gets shot in the head. John gets his liver. His skin begins to loose its yellow hue, but his abdomen remains so swollen the surgeons can't stitch it closed. This would no doubt bother John, if he were conscious.

* * *

At five days he is awake again, and wishing he wasn't. They've put pins in his legs, and casts on his arms, and a cold has settled into his chest. It makes it difficult to breath, even with what he knows is nearly pure oxygen coming from the mask. He is never alone, and the nurses scold him when, in the rare moments he is not asleep or unconscious, he amuses himself with seeing how long he can postpone the inevitable coughing fits.

* * *

Seven days, and he has two new tubes in him. A matching set, one on each side, shoved between his ribs. They drain blood and fluid from around his lungs and it eases his breathing. The doctors pump more blood into his veins to replace what is drained out. He wonders if he has any of his own left now, they've given him so many transfusions.

* * *

A week and a half since coming to earth and words like renal failure and rhabdomyolysis and myoglobin toxicity swirl around him, and he learns his kidneys are failing. It's the trauma, they tell him, filling the blood with toxins that his weary organs can not cope with. They insert huge tubes into his arm, and put him on a dialysis machine. He wonders why they bother. He's dying. He knows it, feels the inevitable creep of darkness.

* * *

It is late at night on the thirteenth day when John's heart monitor screams a death warning, and he knows no more.

* * *

Sixteen days. He's in a coma, a deep, black place with no thought, no light, no sound. Nothing.

* * *

Eighteen. He's floating again, and sometimes he hears voices. But they aren't familiar and he doesn't understand what they say so he ignores them.

* * *

Three weeks. He's awake, aware, with a plastic tube down his throat and a machine breathing for him. They excitedly tell him how his kidney function seems to be improving. As if to spite them, his catheter turns red with blood.

* * *

Improvement, slight, but worthy of notice. Twenty five days, nearly a month, and he is once again breathing on his own. They take the probe from his skull, and pronounce that the swelling of his brain is under control.

* * *

Twenty seven days, and the tube on the right side of his chest is removed. The other still drains blood, but less now than before.

* * *

The pain is getting to him. A month of agony and he is at his limit. They won't give him more pain medication, and he curses them silently while counting and re-counting the tiles in the ceiling.

* * *

There are more endless days of pain and not much else. His new liver is holding its own and his kidneys seem to be mending. The dialysis treatments are dropped to once a week. They take the casts off his arms and put them in itchy braces. They warn him that any sort of stress could harm the barely healed fractures, but he is still in the ICU and the most stressful he is asked to do is hold a thermometer in his mouth.

* * *

It's been two months. He doesn't care. He's too weak, too tired of contently fighting for every little thing. He just wants to sleep. The pins are gone from his legs, though there are invisible metal plates, resting against the bones, holding them together. He can move his right leg, a little, but the left is numb from the mid-thigh down. He doesn't mention it.

* * *

Sixty six days into his stay on Earth he is presented with a cup of water and a handful of pills. Among them is an anti-depressant. He takes the medication without question and leans back in bed, eyes drifting shut. He misses Atlantis, misses the distant sound of waves, the tang of salt in the air, the gentle presence of the city in his mind.

* * *

At two and a half months they put him in a step down ward, which means nothing to him but less attention and more noise. He is fine with the former, but the latter gives him a headache. They tell him his head injury (brain injury, but they never call it that) is healing, but he thinks they are lying. He seems to loose thoughts more often now, and in-depth conversation is beyond him. The words just won't come.

* * *

The depression is starting to lift. He is pushing himself, even as the doctors worry at the stress. The lectures are worth it - He can manage a series of halting steps, with a pair of orderlies, and he complains enough that they remove the catheter. He has another surgery on his left leg, but this time he is standing in three days and walking in five. He is driven. Towards what, he is not sure.

* * *

Two weeks into his third month on Earth, Elizabeth stops by. John is too tired for conversation, so she sits by his bed and watches him shake and sweat his way through the after effects of physical therapy. She doesn't talk, except to tell him that Ford is dead. John turns his head away so Elizabeth won't see the silent tears that track across his face.

* * *

Near the start of his fourth month he gets moved to a normal ward. He feels isolated, even as he is around more people than ever. The other soldiers still smell of dirt and dust and sand. They are maimed from roadside bombs and insurgent attacks, not nuclear blasts in an alien galaxy.

* * *

He is stronger now, and with a wall to lean on he can walk short distances on his own. The numbness in his left leg has retreated a little, but not vanished, and he is careful to look where he puts his foot. He doesn't tell the doctors, just like he doesn't mention how his head never seems to stop pounding, or the way he can't see the other side of a room. His speech, at least, seems to be returning to normal. It is not so hard to think of words any more, or answer questions.

* * *

At four months, one week, three days, six hours and thirty three minutes John opens his eyes to see O'Neill standing over him, holding a pair of pants.

"General?" He asks, drowsily, belatedly realizing he should salute, or something.

"Jailbreak." The man says, as if it explains everything. Apparently, it does, because he makes John get dressed, sneaks him out of the hospital ("I left them a note. Very official looking.") and frog marches him onto a privet jet. It is only when they are in the air, and John has turned down an offer of peanuts, water and a strange purple and orange fruit that he is sure doesn't grow on Earth, that O'Neill explains what is going on.

"Teensy little problem with an ancient weapon." He says casually, holding his fingers an inch or so apart as if to demonstrate just has small a problem it was.

"And you need me to…what, exactly?" John asks, confused. O'Neill had the gene, he shouldn't need John.

"Oh, nothing difficult. Just convince it to release SG-5." O'Neill assures him.

"It?" John asks and then "Wait, what do you mean convince?!"

'It' turns out to be a twelve inch tall robotic AI system armed with rather impressive laser weapons. The robot is a beautiful thing, blue and green and silver molded along ethereal lines, but it's presence in his mind is a pale shadow of what Atlantis once was and it makes him miss the city all the more.

O'Neill wants to blow the AI up, and the AI wants to vaporize O'Neill. It takes an hour of mental negotiation before they trade a package of pop tarts for the gate team and John is able to turn the machine off.

After that O'Neill glares at the robot, yells at SG-5, and gives John a promotion. It leaves his head spinning, especially when the general cheerily escorts him to the mountain's medical unit and shoves him down on a bed.

By the time the doctor arrives, John has fallen asleep to the subliminal hum of ancient technology. His face, slack in repose, looks young and vulnerable. The doctor does not wake him.

* * *

Under the mountain he does not feel so isolated, surrounded by ancient technology and people with security clearance enough to know that he is no normal war victim. He takes to his rehabilitation with renewed vigor, working hard to gain back all that he as lost. He takes to practicing in the shooting range late at night, when there are few around to see him miss the targets again and again. Slowly, as slowly as he rebuilds muscle, he learns to compensate for his damaged vision. It is, he tells himself, no different then adjusting the trajectory of a shot to cope with wind.

He is getting used to the fainter sensations from his left leg, and his other wounds are healing, but sometimes he stands still in a corridor, looking blankly at the floor, or food freezes halfway to his mouth as he's eating, his eyes staring off into the distance.

No one notices. Least of all him.

* * *

On the fifth month anniversary of John's return to Earth he plants himself firmly before the general and says "I want to go back to Atlantis." He has learned not to stand on ceremony with O'Neill, and even if he had not he is too afraid of the possible answers to be anything but blunt.

"I never thought otherwise." Jack tells him, looking up from his work.

"When?" John asks, trying mightily to not sound like a desperate child.

"When you're ready." He is told, cryptically.

"I'm ready now." John insists. At that, the general picks a tennis ball up off his desk and tosses it. John reaches his hand out, about a foot from where the object actually passes.

"Yeah." O'Neill says, dryly. "That's what I thought."

O'Neill tells the doctors, and the doctors do things with lasers that John never, ever, wants to think about. His vision improves, although it is still not as good as it once was. He puts in more time at the range, and starts work in the flight simulators. The one dimensional views give him trouble and he erases the histories of his failure from the usages logs until, finally, he begins to improve.

* * *

He is allowed to fly again, and it is not until he takes off that he realizes how much he has missed flying on Earth. The puddle jumpers are responsive, their systems picking at his mind and trying to help, but their inertial dampeners removed all the _feeling_ from flight. John can not help but laugh as he breaks past the pressure of gravity's invisible hand. When he lands, O'Neill takes in his sloppy smile and rumpled hair and gives him a knowing look.

* * *

By the sixth month he is shooed from the beneath the mountain and told to take a vacation. He goes shopping, the entire first and second day, spending his accumulated wealthy freely. He buys things he has come to consider luxuries, like new socks and boots. New physics and medical journals, scanned onto thumb drives, for Rodney and Carson and a handful of iPods (stuffed with music and movies).

* * *

On the third day of his vacation, John gets hit by a truck. More precisely, his car is hit by a truck, while John is inside of it. When he wakes up, he is the hospital, with military guards at the door and a doctor reading his medical chart with poorly hidden horror.

"Crap." John mutters, and sits up. The world spins, and he feels a steady hand pressing him back to the mattress.

"Easy there." The owner of the hand says, and John blinks until his vision clears.

"'m fine." He insists.

"I doubt that very much." The doctor tells him. "A semi hit you."

"Literally?" John asks, not sure if it was some sort of metaphor. He certainly doesn't feel like he was hit by a truck, although to be fair almost anything pales in comparison to the pain of the past months.

"Yes, literally." The doctor says. "You escaped more or less intact, but received a minor concussion. Given your history of head trauma, I want to run a few more scans."

"I feel fine." John says, and it isn't too far from the truth.

"Your ICP is raised." That, at least, shuts John up. He learned enough in the hospital to know it's not a good sign, and he sighs his surrender. "Okay."

The tests come back clean, and by the next morning his pressure is back within normal limits. His doctor – Mark something or other – doesn't say anything John's scars, or the guards, or the nondisclosure agreement he is forced to sign.

All he says, as he fills out the discharge paperwork, is "What branch?"

"Air force." John tells him, reluctantly. The man nods and turns a little, so John can see the profile of dog tags tucked under his shirt. He looks at the doctor in surprise.

"Army. Twenty years." The man tells him, before leaving.

John keeps his follow up appointment.

* * *

After recovering from the entirely embarrassing hit-by-a-semi incident, John finds O'Neill again. He is surprisingly difficult to find, as he never seems to actually spend any time behind his desk.

"I'm ready." John insists, having cornered the general in the mess hall.

"Are you?" O'Neill asks him, eyes contemplative. "Are you really?" He doesn't give John a chance to answer. "Think carefully before you reply. The lives of others will be staked up on your ability to do your job unhindered."

"I don't have to go back as the head of the military." John says, desperation seeping into his tone. "I'll do anything. Just let me go back." The memory of the city is growing fainter in his mind, fading as Earth once did. He can not bear it.

"No." O'Neill says, and John's heart sinks. "If you go back, it will be as the commanding officer."

"The position is still mine?" He asks, surprised.

"Yes." John doesn't think he'll get elaboration and then "Everett is dead. Besides, I hear Atlantis has been sulking ever since you left." The mans eyes twinkle slightly with humor, and John tries not to look pleased. It's nice to be missed.

"You need to get some off world work in, before I can clear you for Atlantis." O'Neill says, moving the conversation forward. He flips through a stack of papers on his desk and then grabs one and says "Here, you can join SG-5 for a bit."

"Aren't they the team that was held hostage by the AI system?" John asks, warily.

"Yup." O'Neill tells him happily. "Collins stepped in a salleck burrow and broke his leg. They're one military man short." At John's skeptical look he says "Don't worry, ever since the robot incident they've been demoted to milk runs only."

"I can go back to Atlantis?" John asks, to be sure.

"In a few weeks, maybe a month." O'Neill agrees. "Get some missions under your belt, clear the psych and physical, and you'll be good to go."

"Now shoo." Jack says, waving his hands at John like he was an errant puppy. "I have to write myself an excuse note for tomorrows meeting."

With a slight, genuine, smile John leaves the general to his work. He falls into bed and images of Atlantis and her people dance through his dreams.

* * *

A/N: I'm still very unsure about this story, so feedback would be great!

There's a lot of medical mumbo jumbo in this chapter and while I'm not going to go over all of it, I will cover some of the more important/obscure bits. If you're interested in knowing more, I suggest looking up the terms on wiki.

First, I'm assuming that the jumpers have some sort of radiation shielding and as such John was not exposed to harmful levels.

ICP stands for intracranial pressure, which is (in simple terms) the pressure of the skull on everything inside of it (IE: the brain). Anytime the mass inside the skull changes, such as with swelling after a head injury, the ICP can rise to dangerous levels. A probe inserted through a person's skull can measure ICP and help doctors decide how to treat a patient.

About John's poor, lost spleen - because the spleen is an extremely vascular organ, injury to it can result in a great deal of blood lost. Sometimes removing it is the only way to control the bleeding. While this may save the persons life, it is not without complications. Because the spleen plays a part in a person's immune system, loosing it can leave a person more vulnerable to certain types of bacteria.

As to the transplant, while it is possible to survive with only part of a liver (as it will actually re-grow, given time), in John's case the organ was just too badly damaged to be salvaged.

Rhabdomyolysis is the rapid breakdown of muscular tissue which can be a result of severe trauma. As the muscle breaks down it releases damaged cells into the blood stream. Some of those cells, such as myoglobin, are harmful to the kidneys and can lead to kidney failure. Dialysis can help take over the burden of cleaning the blood, giving the kidneys time to heal.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Important Note:** An earlier version of this story was posted under a different username, with the title "Aftermath". During my extended fan fiction hiatus I choose to change both my username and the name of this story. Furthermore, due to all the revision and expansion the story has undergone, I choose to post it as an entirely new story (rather than edit the chapters of the first story with the changes). If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a message. _

**Title:** The Fine Art of Freefall

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** In freefall after the season one finale, John Sheppard struggles to find his way.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the recognizable/original characters, places or things. I made no profit off of this story. I do own this plot and any new characters/places/things.

* * *

Milk runs, John thinks grumpily, wadding through knee high mud. Demoted to milk runs, O'Neill had promised, nothing difficult, nothing dangerous. The arrow through John's upper arm begs to differ.

He has long since lost his ear piece, but it doesn't matter. He sent the rest of the team through the gate, covering their escape. Too bad the wormhole hadn't held. The natives are gone, back to their miserable little huts on their miserable little continent, but they had not stopped the chase until John was miles from the gate and hopelessly lost in the thick forest.

He looks half heartedly at his compass, but the needle only spins in useless confusion. Orson, one of SG-5's scientific members, had been delighted over the unique magnetic properties of the rocks. At least, he had been before the natives attacked. With a sigh, John tucks the useless gadget away and picks a direction at random.

Through some combination of statistical improbability and dumb luck, John finds the gate. Not, of course, before he's waded through miles of swampy land and gotten covered in mud. When he arrives back on Earth he is cold, bloody and fed up.

* * *

"I'm quitting." He tells O'Neill, dropping the bodied arrow the doctors had cut out of him on the general's desk.

"I'll give you a case of chocolate and coffee if you stay." O'Neill says, without glancing up.

The offer is tempting, but "And I never have to work with SG-5 again." John prompts. The general pouts, but nods in agreement.

"You lasted longer than I expected."

"I was only with the team for a week." John points out, staring fixedly at the couch next to O'Neill's desk. It looks really soft.

"That's four days longer than the average for a military member on that team." He's told, and John snorts.

"I can't imagine why." He says, tearing his gaze from the couch and making his way out of the general's office.

He is exhausted, pain and blood loss weighing heavily on his mind, and so when he runs into something it takes him several moments to realize exactly what – or rather, who – he'd hit.

"Oh. Hi." He says, and stares at Daniel. The man kind of freaks John out. Not as much as the clothing optional Asgard, but still, he'd heard a rumor that the scientist has died every year for the past ten years. It's just not natural.

"I heard about SG-5." Daniel says, and then shows a surprising amount of connection with the immediate physical world by grabbing onto John's uninjured arm.

"I know where I live." John slurs, as Daniel helps him to his room. An image of Atlantis drifts through his mind and he halfheartedly bats it away.

"Of course you do." The scientist tells him soothingly, spinning him around with a surprising amount of strength so that when John falls, he falls onto his bed. He dimly feels his boots being removed and a blanket being draped over him.

Daniel must not have been a dream, because when John wakes up twelve hours later he's tucked neatly into bed, a sticky note on the wall next to him.

"_Jack says you have the week off."_

He goes back to sleep.

* * *

During his forced medical leave John get issued new uniforms, complete with updated rank insignias and an embarrassing number of purple hearts. His fingers trace the ribbon from his tour in Afghanistan and, for the first time, he does not drown in bitter memories. He has new nightmares now, new regrets that give perspective to old hurts.

There are only so many times you can polish boots and iron uniforms and so by the third day of his forced medical leave John starts reading mission reports from Atlantis. He can't bring himself to read the files on his own injury, or Ford's death. Instead he reads about Beckett's retrovirus and how Rodney blew up three fourths of a solar system.

"Here." O'Neill says, interrupting John as he's reading Rodney's semi-incoherent notes about how to build a ZPM. The general points to Carter, who is holding a credit card and car keys.

"Sir?" John asks, confused.

"Go shopping." O'Neill tells him.

"I already went shopping." John points out. O'Neill makes a noise like air escaping a balloon and waves his hand.

"You got run over by a truck. You can't possible tell me you don't have more stuff you want to buy."

"Point." John concedes, and stands up.

Carter proves her self useful by carrying all the bags and remembering where the car is parked. She does not comment on the way John starts to limp four hours in, or how he has to put his nose an inch away from the fine print of the price tags to read them.

They return to the mountain at dusk. O'Neill gives the numerous bags Carter is hauling an approving look, which John takes to mean he'll be allowed to take it all through the gate. Back in his quarters he falls into bed, exhausted.

* * *

The rest of his leave passes uneventfully and by the time he's back on duty the wound from the arrow has already begun to heal. It will leave a scar, but John figures one more won't make a difference.

O'Neill lets him play with prototype planes and ancient gizmos that have been classified as amusing but harmless,

"So." O'Neill says late on night, limping over to John in the mess hall. "You still want to go to Atlantis?" John, who had been slumping in near sleep, shoots upright.

"Of course." He says, watching as the general delicately sits down.

"Good. We open the gate in three days. 0800. Be ready."

"Just like that?" John wonders aloud.

The general shrugs. "You're qualified on the range and flight sims. You have physical and psych exams in…" He pauses to look at a clock "Ten hours. Pass those and yeah, just like that."

"Cool." John murmurs, pressing back apprehension over the exams. Changing the subject, he asks "What happened?" and looks pointedly at the other mans feet.

"Dancing." He is told, with a wince. "Lots and lots of dancing." Trading "mission disaster" stories is a popular pastime under the mountain.

"Don't you have a desk job?" John queries. As far as he can tell, O'Neill's office is a dusty suite near the gateroom that hasn't seen use since the cold war.

"I have a unique interpretation of the term." Is the amused reply and yes, that sounds about right. "Besides," O'Neill adds "Whenever the alien cultures say 'take me to your leader' I end up having to meet them."

John snorts, but he's so tired the little sound practically makes him fall over.

"Go, sleep." The general tells him. "Don't miss your appointments."

"M'kay." John agrees, standing.

* * *

In the morning he sees the doctors and the psychiatrist, petrified the entire time that they'll ban him from returning. His left leg is still mostly numb and his vision, while improved after the laser treatments, isn't back to normal. He gets headaches a lot, pounding ones that strike with unsettling speed, and he knows he's practically a poster child for PTSD. Then again, so are half the people in the Stargate program. Constant threat of death tends to do that. Still, between memorizing the eye chart and putting his acting skills to good use, he passes the tests.

Six and a half months after he rolled through the Stargate from Atlantis to Earth on a gurney, John stands on the bare concrete floor of the gate room and watches as the wormhole bursts into existence.

Behind and to either side of John are about a dozen people, new personal for the expedition. John can hear them shifting nervously, whispering back and forth to one another. They have erected a bubble of elitism around John, an invisible buffer zone. He stands, isolated and too keyed up to care, waiting for the all clear to go through the gate. When the signal comes he turns and looks up at the command room. O'Neill is gazing back at him and throws a lazy salute. John answers with a grin, one of the few true ones he's offered, and a lazy two fingered wave.

Then he turns around, takes eleven and a half steps, and is home.

* * *

A/N: This chapter is shorter than most, for which I apologize. I wanted to break before he arrived in Atlantis and didn't want to add fluff just for the sake of word count. :)  
For those worried that the angst is over, fear not. There is more to come.  
As always reviews, comments and questions are much appreciated.


End file.
